Would you turn with me once again to the Gospel of John, Chapter 14? We will read Verses 16 and 17.
And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may be with you for ever,
even the Spirit of truth: whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth Him not, neither knoweth Him:
ye know Him; for He abideth with you, and shall be in you.
I will not leave you desolate: I come unto you.
Then turn to the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 3, Verse 11.
I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance: but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear:
He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire:
whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly cleanse His threshing-floor; and He will gather His wheat into the garner,
but the chaff He will burn up with unquenchable fire.
Then, in the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 2, Verses 1 through 4.
And when the day of Pentecost was now come, they were all together in one place.
And suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
And there appeared unto them tongues parting asunder, like as of fire; and it sat upon each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Finally, turn to the Old Covenant, in the Book of Exodus, Chapter 3, beginning at Verse 1.
Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.
And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
And Moses said, I will turn aside now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.
And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.
And He said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
Moreover He said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.
Beloved Lord, we are so thankful that we are here in Your presence.
And Lord, as we come to the ministry of Your Word, we know very well that we can do nothing without You. The speaking, the translating, and the hearing will amount to nothing unless, Lord, You are the power in it all.
We want to thank You, Father, that You have provided an anointing of grace, and power, and wisdom for such a time.
By that anointing, we stand by faith. Let the speaking be under the anointing, the translating under the anointing, and our hearing under the anointing.
We are at the crossroads in world history. Beloved Lord, we need You. Will You speak into our hearts this evening and do in us something that can never be taken away?
For whatsoever You do, Lord, it is forever. We shall be careful to give You all the thanksgiving and praise of our hearts for answering our prayer.
We ask it in the name of our Messiah, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
Well, I am sure everybody knows that the theme of this conference is Knowing the Holy Spirit. As I have said each evening, there is no subject that could be of greater or more vital significance at this time than this matter.
My part in this has been to speak about the person of the Holy Spirit.
Truly, knowing the Holy Spirit as a person is the key to everything in Christian life and service.
In John 14:17, in the passage we read together a few moments ago, the Lord Jesus said, “Ye know Him.”
It is one thing to know about Him. It is another thing to know Him.
You can have all the doctrine, all the theology, all the theory, and still be a stranger to the Holy Spirit. Do you really know Him?
There are two aspects concerning the person of the Holy Spirit, and it is vital that we understand them.
The first is His indwelling. He has come to live in us—not merely to visit us, merely to bless us, or merely to use us. He has come to dwell in us. He has made His home in us.
Because of the finished work of the Lord Jesus, because of that great salvation which our Lord Jesus won at Calvary, you have been justified in the sight of God. The Holy Spirit has come to make His home in you.
That is one aspect. It is vital, essential, and foundational.
The second aspect is just as important, foundational, and essential: His empowering.
The Holy Spirit wants to dwell in you, and He wants to be the power of God in you. These two aspects sum up, really, what our Lord Jesus has won for us. Both, as I have said, are essential and of equal importance.
Are we truly born again?
You may think that is a very strange thing to ask in a conference of Christians. But are we truly born again? It is possible to be converted in the head and not born of the Spirit of God.
There are second-generation Christians, third-generation Christians, and fourth-generation Christians for whom it is all up here in the head.
When the Spirit dwells in us, we are hungry for the Lord. We thirst for the Lord. We long to know the Lord. We long for fellowship. Our eyes are opened to another world—opened to the Spirit of God.
These are all evidences that a person is born of God.
But often, when we have heard these things from childhood, we believe, we believe, and it is all put in the head. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is of tremendous importance.
But His being in us in power is also important. Have we been empowered? Are we able to function? Are we able to contribute something of the Lord? Are we able to really worship? Are we able to intercede? Have we the power to be what God has created us to be?
These two aspects are, to me, so important.
In John 20, there is an amazing event that took place when Jesus stood in the midst of those disciples. It was the risen Christ. Thomas was not there, and the Lord Jesus breathed on them.
What happened? As I understand it—and I am sure someone will put me right if I am wrong—the Holy Spirit was not yet given. Yet here the Lord Jesus did this: He breathed on them and said, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit.”
Spiritual growth is so quiet. You do not hear it. You grow—that is it.
Every one of you has grown; otherwise you could not be sitting here in these old bodies. You grow up so amazingly.
Think of fruit. Fruit is so quiet. You do not hear an apple coming, “Bang, bang, bang,” and then an apple appears. You do not hear a mango growing. It is so quiet.
The fruit of the Spirit is something so quiet.
Many Christians think that is all there is to the Holy Spirit. But there is another side to the Holy Spirit.
There is the sound of a gale-force wind. The whole place was filled, and tongues of fire were distributed upon them. They were all speaking in other tongues. It was so sensational, so public, so obvious.
One matter is so quiet, and the other matter is so public. Both have to do with the person of the Holy Spirit.
Some of us prefer the quiet side, but then we are limiting the person of the Holy Spirit. Some people like the public, noisy side. Both aspects of the person of the Holy Spirit are absolutely foundational and essential.
You cannot be a child of God without the Holy Spirit. You cannot be in the body of the Lord Jesus apart from the Holy Spirit. That is the quiet side.
But you cannot be filled with the power of God except by the Holy Spirit. The church will never endure, nor be a testimony and a witness to the world, apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. The work of the gospel cannot be fulfilled without the power of the Holy Spirit.
Otherwise, we will turn the church into some little elitist group of going-on saints. The British always thought that their temperament was the temperament of God—quiet, phlegmatic, and not panicking.
But there is another side to the Holy Spirit: His gale-force wind, His fire. You and I must know these aspects.
Our brother this morning spoke about the historic side of the baptism of the Spirit. But there is something that you and I have to enter into ourselves.
We have to lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of us. That is how you became a child of God. You surrendered to the Lord Jesus. You asked Him to be your Saviour. You took hold of that finished work of Calvary. You were born of God.
In the same way, we have to come into the power of the Holy Spirit. It is very important for us to understand this, and it has to become our own living experience.
There are many emblems of the Holy Spirit, and they are very beautiful.
One emblem of the Holy Spirit is dew. You never hear the dew. It is so quiet, and yet it revives, renews, and refreshes everything.
In Palestine, all the fruits of the Holy Land—dates, pomegranates, grapes, olives, and many more—come to their full ripeness by the dew.
There are many other emblems, but it is very interesting to me that one of those emblems is probably used more than any other: fire.
John the Baptist, speaking of our Lord Jesus in Matthew 3:11, said:
He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire.
Luke says the same thing:
He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire.
It is not just a quiet receiving. He breathes out; we breathe in, as A. B. Simpson put it in his hymn. This baptism is a submerging in the Holy Spirit, an immersing in the Holy Spirit.
Many people have come to me over the years and said, “I have the Holy Spirit.”
I find that very interesting. You have the Holy Spirit, but we do not always see it. The Holy Spirit is trapped inside of you, restrained by your flesh, trapped in your problems, defeated by your self-life.
But when the Holy Spirit gets you, that is a different matter.
Then you are lost in the fathomless infinity of God. Then you are launched into the fullness of God, the unsearchable riches of the Messiah. The Holy Spirit has got you.
It is not that you have got the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit has got you. That is tremendous.
I always used to use an illustration. You go down to the coast here, and you have the Pacific. You take a bucket and fill it. Then you say to me, “I have the Pacific in my bucket.”
No, no, no. You have one bucket full of the Pacific.
But if you throw that bucket out into the sea, a wave comes and fills it. Another wave comes, and the bucket has disappeared. The Pacific has got the bucket.
That is all the difference between saying, “I have the Spirit.” Thank God for that. But more important is this: has the person of the Holy Spirit got you?
Then there is nothing impossible. You have been launched into the greatness and infinity of God Himself.
Is it not interesting that on the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon those one hundred and twenty, it was fire?
Suddenly, the fire distributed itself, and there was a tongue upon each one of the one hundred and twenty. The fire became one hundred and twenty tongues of fire.
I find this quite interesting. In Christian tradition, saints always have a kind of circle of light or gold around their heads. That is how you distinguish a saint: he has a halo.
But in Jewish tradition, it is a tongue of fire over his head. That is how you tell a saint.
What is that? It is this emblem of the person of the Holy Spirit—fire—which was so visible on the Day of Pentecost.
Think of that congregation of one hundred and twenty. It was a perfect congregation: fasting and in prayer, pure in doctrine. They believed their whole Old Testament. They believed in the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus, His sinlessness, His Messianic ministry, His bodily burial and bodily resurrection, and His coming again.
Most Christians would say, “This is perfect. This is the perfect church. This is what we are all looking for.”
But the Lord Jesus said—putting it in my own words—“Do not go around starting congregations. You wait until the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”
In that day, the perfect one hundred and twenty units of that congregation became one hundred and twenty members of a body.
The Holy Spirit introduced them into a living organism. The Head was at the right hand of God. The body was on earth. The Holy Spirit was the union between the Head and the body.
They turned the world upside down without theological seminaries, without Bible schools, without great fundraising techniques, and without all the paraphernalia that we think is absolutely necessary to evangelism.
Whilst the church remained a living organism, indwelt by the Holy Spirit and empowered by the Holy Spirit, they were invincible. Persecution, censorship, and martyrdom only caused it to grow more.
What a tremendous lesson this is.
Generally speaking, if anyone speaks about fire, they only think of refining and purging. But fire speaks of far more.
Fire speaks of refinement. It is what the Holy Spirit does, and He never stops. We are refined as by fire.
Precious stones are brought out of the deep places of darkness in our lives, formed by enormous heat and pressure. Gold is produced from what appears to be worthless rubbish in the earth.
These are the three materials out of which the city of God, the wife of the Lamb, the bride of the Messiah, is produced.
Fire also speaks of power. Energy comes from fire.
It speaks of warmth—love.
It speaks of attraction.
I do not know what it is about men, as opposed to women, but men have a fatal fascination for fires. I do not know why, but the bigger the bonfire, the better.
We always had to watch everybody at Halford House in the old days. If the fellows were working in the garden, they would build such fires that one day a jumbo jet of British Airways, flying over Halford House to land at London Heathrow, reported to the police, “There is a fire in Richmond.” It was in our garden.
You cannot hide a fire. A fire is seen. It attracts attention.
I find the way God met with Moses one of the most remarkable events in the whole Bible. It has very much to say to us about the Holy Spirit.
You remember, Moses was in the wilderness, in the desert. He was keeping sheep, goats, and camels. That was quite a come-down for Pharaoh’s grandson.
Especially to the Egyptians, keeping goats and sheep was among the lowest forms of work. Moses had spent forty years tending smelly goats and sheep.
One day he saw a fire. That was not so unusual. It happened very often in the desert. A thornbush would catch fire spontaneously in the heat.
Moses did not pay much attention at first. Then he looked again ten minutes later, and it was still burning. Normally, these fires were very quick.
Half an hour later, he looked again. One hour later, he thought, “I had better go over and have a look. This must be a very big thornbush.”
When he came near to that thornbush, which would never grow higher than his chest, it was amazing. The bush burned with fire, but the bush was not destroyed.
Then suddenly, from that bush, almost at ground level, he heard the voice of God: “Moses, Moses. Take off the shoes from off your feet, for the ground whereon you stand is holy.”
If it had been a palm tree, we could have understood it. A palm tree speaks of holiness; it speaks of loyalty. We could have understood a great, powerful palm tree calling to Moses, “Take your shoes off your feet. The ground whereon you stand is holy.”
If it had been an olive tree, we would have been thrilled. Think about Bible typology: the olive tree speaking of the Spirit-filled man. We would have said, “Wonderful. This is a picture of a Spirit-filled man.”
If it had been a shittim tree—an acacia tree—we could have understood it. All the wood of the tabernacle was acacia. It was the house of God.
Even a humble pomegranate would have been wonderful—fruitfulness, fruitfulness. Such typology! We could have understood that.
But a thornbush? There is no value in a thorn. Even the camels, if they can find something else to eat, will do so.
It was not a green, blossoming thornbush. It was a dead thornbush.
You see why I think this is one of the most incredible meetings in the whole Bible: holy ground, a dead thornbush on fire, and the bush was not consumed.
When Moses recovered from his shock, God said, “I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. You shall go to Pharaoh, and you shall say to him, ‘Let My people go.’”
Then Moses said, “What is Your name? If I go to Pharaoh and he asks me, ‘Who is this God? What is His name?’ what shall I say?”
And the Lord said, “I AM.”
Listen carefully to me. That thornbush was Moses. That fire was the Spirit of God, the great I AM, dwelling in the bush.
That bush was the children of Israel. The fire was the Spirit of God in the midst of the children of Israel.
It had taken the Lord forty years to reduce Moses to a dead thornbush.
His royal education, his relationship to Pharaoh, his upbringing in the palace—forty years it took the Lord to bring Moses to the place where he recognized that he was nothing.
And the fire was everything.
Now, you Christians, listen to me. It could have been a beautiful tree full of fruit. It could have been a thousand and one other things. But it was fire.
He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire.
Dear family of God, what is it that attracts the world? The fire of God.
Fire has always been the emblem of the person of the Holy Spirit. When God came down to the mountain, it burned with fire. When they put the burnt offering on the altar, fire came down from heaven and consumed it.
When they journeyed in the wilderness, there was a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire.
If you look at the history of the church, every time there have been men and women who came back into that great power of the Holy Spirit—who knew His indwelling and the power of His presence—it has been like fire in a thornbush.
Fire turned the whole of Europe upside down.
Take John Wesley. He was so legalistic—not for nothing was he called a Methodist. But when he felt that strange warming in his heart, the fire, it turned the English-speaking world upside down.
Think of George Whitefield. He was born in a public house—not a very happy beginning for someone who was going to become a great servant of God. Furthermore, he had a cast in his eyes. One eye looked there, and one eye looked over there. Whenever he preached, at least two people got convicted.
But the fire was in him. He turned the whole English-speaking world upside down.
Beloved brothers and sisters, it is amazing: when God wanted to give a ministry to those who had inexplicable suffering, He took a precious sister and disabled her.
Her name was Amy Carmichael. To this day, what she wrote—her poems and her other writings—is a ministry to those with inexplicable suffering. It was fire in a thornbush.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is the thing that attracts men and women to God in our lives.
I came to know the Lord myself through a man who was absolutely nothing to look at.
He was a little old, hook-nosed man with wing-collar. His name was C. T. Studd. He was a difficult man, and most pioneers are.
When he found out that he could not go with the Cambridge Seven to China unless he had a medical examination, he went to see his doctor.
The doctor said, “What do you want me to give you this medical for?”
“I want to go as a missionary to China,” he said. He was a famous cricketer, by the way.
When the doctor gave him his medical examination, he said, “You cannot go to China. You are a museum of diseases.”
C. T. Studd said, “God has called me to China. I take the museum of diseases with me.”
He went to China, then to India, then to Africa. He never went back to England. He was a thornbush, but the fire of God burned in him.
I never knew him personally, but he was the subject of the first Christian book I ever read. As I read it, I became more and more fascinated by the indwelling Christ in this thornbush.
He was absolutely one hundred percent for the Lord. I could not believe it. I had never been in a church. I knew nothing about Christianity. I had never been in a synagogue. We had religious instruction at school, but that was all.
I was nearly thirteen years of age when I read that book. So powerful was the fire of God in that life.
When I finished the book, I wanted to be the same. I remember standing—I did not even know how to pray. I did not know whether to stand or kneel. But then I prayed an unscripted prayer:
“Lord, if there is a God, will You please do in me what You did in him?”
I did not feel anything. I did not feel any change. I went to see a Charlie Chaplin film that afternoon. But something had happened.
I said to my sister, “I would like to go to a church tomorrow morning.” The next day was Sunday, and I went. It was the first Christian service I had ever attended.
I found it very strange—everyone standing up, singing, sitting down, and bowing their heads. It was very strange, but there seemed to be a fire in the people.
Then I heard there was a baptismal service.
My sister and I said to one of the people there, “What happens in a baptismal service?”
“They are baptized,” he said.
My sister said, “Do they wear lovely robes and crowns?” He said, “No, no. You had better come and see.”
Before those eight people were baptized, each one gave a testimony. The amazing thing was that it was the same as C. T. Studd. They had a living experience of the Lord. The Lord had met them.
Later, Alan Redpath gave the appeal. I had such a battle. What was that? Fire.
F. B. Meyer was a difficult man. I loved him, but he was a difficult man. He could sit there and not say a word for an hour.
He was not what you would call a fiery man. He spoke very slowly and thoughtfully.
But there was a fire in that old thornbush. It never went out. He was a prophetic voice in his own generation.
You see, do you have the fire of God in you?
There was a man in Britain when I was first saved. He was famous. He was the best-known atheist in Britain.
He was always writing in the best-known national newspapers against the Christians and against the church. Because he was from one of the most famous universities, he was a household word in Britain. He was always laughing at the royal family.
His name was Malcolm Muggeridge.
He heard about an old nun in India and thought, “I will go and expose her.”
He was in his seventies when he went to Calcutta and came to Mother Teresa. His plan was to write a whole series of articles debunking her and the Catholic Church.
It was the greatest shock of his life.
Mother Teresa only stood to about this height—a little old, wrinkled Albanian lady. But as he was with her, he became strangely moved.
In the end, he thought, “I had better go with her. I cannot find the hypocrisy.”
He went out in the night to those dying on the streets of Calcutta, and he watched her. She was absolutely straight with him.
“You are a sinner,” she said. “You are going to hell.”
But as he watched her, he watched her kiss people who were so filthy and so foul-smelling that he could hardly believe it.
Malcolm Muggeridge went back to Britain. It was as if his whole life had fallen to pieces. He went away to think.
In those three weeks, he found the Lord. The best-known atheist was born of God.
The following week, all the newspapers had headlines: “Muggeridge Goes Religious.” “Malcolm Muggeridge Goes Senile.”
Now, I am not holding a brief for the Roman Catholic Church. But what I am saying is this: here is something that shames us.
Here was a nun who knew the Lord, and in whose life was the fire of God. It was a thornbush on fire with the Spirit of God.
A man who was like a fortress against the gospel, a man who had used every academic weapon imaginable to destroy the gospel, was overcome by meeting the fire in the thornbush.
Dear, dear family of God, we need the fire. We need the fire.
May the Holy Spirit ignite that fire in every one of our lives, and in our life together as the people of God.
Let us pray.
Lord, we bow before You. Maybe in many of our lives, that fire which once burned has gone out. That first love has grown cold.
Others, maybe we have never had that fire in us. By Your Spirit, Lord, ignite us.
Lord, may we be ablaze for Your glory, a witness and a testimony to the whole world.
We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.